The Jesus Conspiracy, Pt. 1

Conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns go back to the 1st Century

Every Easter, people in churches around the world hear a conspiracy theory about the purported resurrection of Jesus - complete with a government cover-up and disinformation campaign. According to the New Testament, the Jewish hierarchy paid the men guarding Jesus’ tomb to blame the mysterious disappearance of his body on his disciples.

The Gospel of Matthew puts it this way: “While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.” If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day” –Matthew 28:11-15 (New International Version).

Regardless of how you may view the veracity of Matthew’s gospel, here’s his version of events. The Jewish religious leaders wanted Jesus arrested and executed. They colluded with one of his disciples – Judas Iscariot – to apprehend Jesus away from Jerusalem, which was packed due to Passover celebrations. They further pressured the civil authorities to crucify Jesus, but warned Roman governor Pontius Pilate that the disciples might try to stage a fake resurrection. Guards from the Jewish temple secured Jesus’ tomb and spent the following days and nights on watch.

Despite these precautions, Matthew writes that there was an earthquake Sunday morning and a brilliant white figure opened the tomb and shocked the guards into a stupor.  When they came to, they reported their failure to the Jewish leaders, who paid them to spread a conspiracy theory that Jesus’ disciples had orchestrated the empty tomb.

Matthew concludes that what today might be called “fake news” persisted to the time when he wrote his account. The debate about whether Jesus rose from the dead or was spirited off into Son-of-God status by his disciples persists to this very day. 

The four gospels seem to differ on many of the details regarding Jesus’ final week. The writers were not reporters as we understand journalism today – they wrote commentary and news analysis to promote a particular point of view. But they still had sources – some apparently firsthand – for the dots that they hoped to connect.

Like four different witnesses taking the stand, the stories reflect different eyes, different minds. 

Some details are exactly the same across the four gospels: the week begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter. In between, we find the Triumphal Entry, the Last Supper, the Trial, the Crucifixion – and enough betrayal and intrigue to rival any Netflix series or QAnon website.

I spent a year in Israel walking (quite literally) some of the same Herodian-stone streets that Jesus walked. I endeavored to set aside my 20th-century mind in order to better understand those 1st-century events, searching for clues as to why Jesus was killed and who emptied the tomb that first Easter.

‘I Will Destroy This Temple’

Jesus wasn’t sentenced to death because he claimed to be the messiah. Jews have historically hoped for a messiah to come, and being that messiah would be no crime. 

It wasn’t because Jesus committed blasphemy. He never uttered the Name of God during his testimony; in fact, he exercised proper rabbinic indirection by referring to God as “the Mighty One.”

Jesus was assassinated by Jewish religious leaders in the first century because they believed he was a terrorist – a rising figure who planned to destroy their temple.

Even after he was dead, rumors persisted that Jesus or his followers were going to literally tear the temple down (Acts 6:13-14).

In Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, witnesses testify at Jesus’ trial that he threatened to tear down the temple (Mt. 26:60-61 and Mk. 14:57-58). Later, while Jesus hangs on the Roman-designed torture device called a cross, cynical passers-by are quoted as saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” (Mt. 27:39-40 and Mk. 15:29-30).

Modern reconstruction of what the Second Temple would have looked like after its renovation during the reign of Herod I.

The popular belief that Jesus and his disciples were plotting to destroy the temple had basis in fact, according to the gospel accounts. On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem proclaiming himself the messiah. Three of the gospels say the first thing he did once inside the walled city was to occupy the temple grounds and drive out those who were turning profits in the name of God. (The Gospel of John, in stark contrast, sets the Cleansing of the Temple in the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.)

Consider these actions:

• “He entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling” (Luke 21:45).

• “He overturned the tables of the money changers” (Mt. 21:12).

• Jesus “would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts” (Mk. 11:16).

• “So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle” (Jn. 2:15).

In John, Jewish officials ask Jesus for a miraculous sign to verify his authority to occupy the temple. Jesus replies: “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.” The officials assume he means the sanctuary that Herod spent 46 years rebuilding, but John offers the commentary, “The temple he had spoken of was his body.”

The powers-that-be are shaken by Jesus’ show of force. They figure the best strategy is to enlist the aid of Rome. They will have to convince the Romans that Jesus is really a threat to Caesar.

‘Render Unto Caesar’

If Jesus wasn’t a terrorist himself, he certainly didn’t mind having terrorists for friends. First-century Palestine was as explosive as Palestine today; only then, the Romans were the occupying military force and the Jews were the ones throwing rocks.

Although the Romans let locals practice their own religions, they still wanted final allegiance to Caesar. Jews willing to bow to both gods got special favors. Jews who wouldn’t often got killed.

Pontius Pilate was trying to establish Roman order in Palestine. When he tried to bring an image of the emperor to the Temple Mount, a riot broke out. Roman soldiers dressed like Jews moved among the crowds and stuck knives into dissident leaders. Jews calling themselves “Zealots” (two of Jesus’ disciples – Judas and Simon – were Zealots) used the same tactic to kill Romans.

Jesus isn’t speaking in metaphoric parables just because they’re good teaching devices. He’s speaking in code – trying to get a rebel message out without getting killed.

After Jesus and his followers clean up the temple, the chief priests and and allies of Herod set out to trap him. The plan is to get Jesus in a bravado mood so he will slander Caesar. The issue they pick is one of the hottest topics around: taxes.

The Romans wanted their subjects to pay taxes with Roman currency. The coins were called “denarii” and bore the image of Caesar with the inscription, “Divine Tiberius Caesar.”Devout Jews wouldn’t even touch Roman money, let alone pay taxes with it.

A denarius featuring Tiberius. The inscription on the obverse reads “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus" and the reverse reads "Highest Priest.”

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, we find the same account of government agents sent out to flatter Jesus in front of a crowd of devout Jews in hopes he’ll condemn Caesar’s taxes. If he does, they’ve got him. If he doesn’t, he’ll look like a collaborator.

The gospels say Jesus’ maneuvers were nothing short of amazing.

“Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right and that you do not show partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth,” the spies say (Lk. 20:21-26). “Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Jesus asks to see a Roman coin (apparently he did not have one) and asks the owner whose portrait it bears. Caesar’s!

“Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Jesus sidesteps the trap by confirming that Jews should have nothing to do with Roman money without literally saying so. The people are pleased and the spies go away without an arrest.

Jesus’ keen rabbinical sense, revealed best in the Gospel of Luke, keeps him from the clutches of the government for a couple of days. During the day, he is preaching in the temple while retreating across the Kidron Valley east of Jerusalem at night. 

Judas Iscariot – who might have preferred more radical resistance from his leader – agrees to take Jewish temple guards to a secluded garden where Jesus can be arrested without causing a scene.

‘Are You Then the Son of God?’

Jewish scholars have never liked the story of the Trial of Jesus, partly because the gospel accounts show the high court committing numerous violations of Jewish law. 

“The procedure for trials set forth in Mishna Sanhedrin are strikingly absent here,” writes Samuel Sandmel in Judaism and Christian Beginnings.

Fortunately for Sandmel, only Matthew and Mark record a Trial of Jesus. Luke and John, which I regard as the more Hebraic gospels, describe no trial. Instead, they recount what could be called a “rabbinic interrogation.”

A 19-century depiction of the messy, chaotic trial of Jesus recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. In Luke’s version, the rabbis have a civil discourse to determine the facts of Jesus’ teaching.

According to Luke, Jewish temple guards arrest Jesus by night at the Garden of Gethsemane and take him to the house of the high priest. Perhaps the high priest is asleep, because Jesus is detained all night in a courtyard, where guards beat and insult him.

This courtyard is apparently large and open to the sky, because the disciple Peter and several servants of the high priest warm themselves around a fire not far from Jesus.

When Peter, out of fear of being beaten and insulted, denies he knows Jesus, a rooster announces dawn and Luke writes, “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter” (Lk. 22:61).

At daybreak, Jesus is led before the Sanhedrin, comprising the high priests, elders and head rabbis (or “scribes”). There is no courtroom drama in Luke’s account – none of the false witnesses or the high priest rending his garment with a cry of “Blasphemy!” that we read in Matthew and Mark.

The purpose of the rabbinic interrogation is to determine if Jesus claims to be the “Christ” (Greek for the Hebrew term, “Messiah”). Jesus raises his rabbinic right to also pose questions.

“If you are the Christ,” they said, “tell us.” Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me and I asked you, you would not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.” They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied, “You are right in saying I am.” Then they said, “Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips” (Lk. 22:67-23:1).

This is clearly not a trial. Jesus has claimed to be the “Son of Man,” a relatively obscure messianic title taken from the prophet Daniel. The elders confirm his claim to be the “Son of God,” a more widely used messianic title originating in the Book of Samuel. 

Jesus has neither committed blasphemy nor boasted divinity. No witnesses are needed or called.

Although Jesus has broken no Jewish law, the Sanhedrin now has the ammunition it needs to get him charged with a crime under Roman law. The Jewish leaders tell Pilate that Jesus is a tax resister, is disloyal to Caesar and claims a rival sovereignty over the Jews.

John’s gospel offers an expanded version of the rabbinic interrogation, in which Jesus is hit when he seems disrespectful. Regardless, he ends up at Pilate’s doorstep.

True to Jewish sensibilities, John writes that the elders won’t set foot in Pilate’s palace lest they be ritually contaminated. The Passover is to commence that night, a detail that upsets the common notion that the Last Supper was a Passover seder. (It was the Day of Preparation, the day before the Passover.)

Jesus’ ability to elude entrapment seems to pay off, because Pilate can find no evidence that he is a dissident or revolutionary. The four gospels agree that Pilate gives Jesus the death penalty to appease the Jewish religious leaders. 

The legendary crowd that calls for Jesus’ crucifixion is composed not of the rank-and-file Jerusalemite, but a mob organized by the ruling class (Jn. 19:6).

Jesus of Nazareth, a traveling rabbi in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire, joined the ranks of the millions executed through the centuries in the name of law and order.

After 2,000 years, it’s a miracle we even know his name.

Next time: So, Who Took the Body?